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I was wondering how many of you folks out ther willl take your horn with you on vacation so as to not miss any time practicing ?
I'm taking the family to a resort lake but we will be staying in a semi-secluded house with plenty of room for everyone so I should be able to find a little quite space for myself. I suppose I could always go out to the dock and serenade the fish . Also, I will be bringing my Denis Wick practice mute ( Yes, C.B.,it's going with me ) so I should be able to play anytime I want .

As I am a amature only I don't get to practice much during the week. Ususally whenever I can find time in between the usual taking care of the family and working stuff . It's always last on the list ,sad to say. I figure I'll do more practiceing during this week then I normally get . The plans were to spend a lot of time on the water with the boat but the cold weather here has changed that until late next week . I will not have much else to do until then. I don't like to fish in the cold .

One of my greatest motivations to practice is how badly I SUCK when I don't.

I am trying to remember the last time I went on a trip that didn't involve some sort of tuba/euphonium event...

...drawing a blank.


I do think that a vacation from playing (not too long, not too often) can be a positive thing. When I get time off from school/teaching, I like to take a few days off from playing. When I come back to my euphonium after three or four days, it feels a little weird, but I end up paying a lot more attention to things I usually take for granted: breathing, vibrato, consistency and quality of sound.

- Jamie

Vacation? What's that? The last "real" vacation I had was (mumble) years ago when my aunt treated the family to a week at Disney in Florida for her 60th birthday.

We had a forced upon us vacation this January when the worst winter ice storm in a century downed power lines and snapped trees like toothpicks in the middle of January. The office where I work was without power for ten consecutive days. And that was considered on the low end of average power outage for the actual urban area.

Well ... as I stated before I am only an amature who plays in a community band. For me playing is recreation. It's a hobby for me I suppose. I've never spent the kind of time practicing and studying or consant gigging to make a living like you folks. I really look forward to being able to do any playing. To do it as part of a vacation is even better ! I may actually progess in some of my "rough" areas .[/quote]

Vacation? Isn't that what trumpets are for.

DP wrote:If you're playing, or working, or even "checking e-mail" (or tubenet) or whatever, it's not a vacation...its a trip.

Lemme ask you this, how would you react if actually forced to "get away from it all"?

With great pleasure! As I do each and every year at the time commanded by the ETERNAL (by the Hebrew calender), at a place He puts His name.

The Feast of Tabernacles

Leviticus 23:33 Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 34 “Speak to the children of Israel, saying: ‘The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days to the LORD. 35 On the first day there shall be a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work on it. 36 For seven days you shall offer an offering made by fire to the LORD. On the eighth day you shall have a holy convocation, and you shall offer an offering made by fire to the LORD. It is a sacred assembly, and you shall do no customary work on it.
37 ‘These are the feasts of the LORD which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, to offer an offering made by fire to the LORD, a burnt offering and a grain offering, a sacrifice and drink offerings, everything on its day— 38 besides the Sabbaths of the LORD, besides your gifts, besides all your vows, and besides all your freewill offerings which you give to the LORD.
39 ‘Also on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the fruit of the land, you shall keep the feast of the LORD for seven days; on the first day there shall be a sabbath-rest, and on the eighth day a sabbath-rest. 40 And you shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of beautiful trees, branches of palm trees, the boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook; and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God for seven days. 41 You shall keep it as a feast to the LORD for seven days in the year. It shall be a statute forever in your generations. You shall celebrate it in the seventh month. 42 You shall dwell in booths for seven days. All who are native Israelites shall dwell in booths, 43 that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.’â€

Have a rest - you probably need it..................

Andrew M

Lemme ask you this, how would you react if actually forced to "get away from it all"?

I am not by any means a work-aholich . I love my job . It pays well and I give the company their moneys worth for that pay and then some . But ........ given the chance to take time off ?? I'd be gone before they could finish telling me to go !!!

When I go on a vacation, I generally don't bring my horn. I personally like taking a break from the horn every once in a while. It forces you to rebuild a little and can remind you of things you were doing wrong. When I come back, if I practice right, I can have my full chops back in about 48 hours. After that I usually sound better then when I left too. It forces you to make sure you're doing everything right.

A couple of years ago, my father offered to have my wife, 2 children and me stay at his home for Thanksgiving.

I asked my father if it would be OK if I practiced in his house.

"Practice? Are you kidding? I love hearing you play piano."

"Uhhh, Dad, I didn't really mean piano."

"What, TUBA???? If you want to practice tuba, you go to your mother's house!"

Which is exactly what I did.

When I wasn't playing much it was nice to take the horn along (as long as it was a road trip) and have some quality time to work on stuff. Now that I'm playing a bunch and doing more vacations that require airline travel, for me, it's good to give it a rest.

One of my favourite vacations is to go to Africa on safari. That provides a complete break from everyday life, with no news, no mobiles, no computers and even no music. Just enjoying being amongst nature at its finest.

On my return I have actually found that I play better - strange it must be the relaxation for the brain.